Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 22, 1993 TAG: 9312220114
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN KING ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
It is an all-too-familiar cycle at the White House, and not even Christmastime is exempt. Forget NAFTA, handgun controls and the growing economy: This week it's back to Nannygate, allegations of infidelity and other embarrassing turns that have the White House suddenly back in damage-control mode.
"It seems more like Halloween than Christmas," one Clinton aide lamented Tuesday.
This week's headlines:
The White House acknowledged the president telephoned state troopers in Arkansas to discuss rumors that members of his state security detail were about to go public with allegations of extramarital sex affairs by Clinton.
Bobby Inman, Clinton's choice to replace Les Aspin as defense secretary, said he failed to pay Social Security taxes on a household worker.
Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders' son was arrested on charges he sold cocaine, a week after his mother suggested that the government study legalizing drugs.
The White House acknowledged it removed and gave to Clinton's personal lawyer a file found in the office of the late White House deputy counsel Vince Foster, who committed suicide. The file, which was not shown first to investigators, concerned a controversial Clinton real estate investment.
"These things all appear to be unrelated, but it all comes in bunches for these guys, doesn't it?" marveled Erwin Hargrove, a presidential scholar at Vanderbilt University.
Lost on no one in Washington was the irony of the latest barrage.
After a win streak at the close of the congressional session, Clinton hoped to build momentum heading into next year by focusing on crime, welfare reform and health care reform and by trumpeting good economic news.
Buried in Tuesday's Washington Post was evidence the plan was working: a national poll showing Clinton with a 58 percent job approval rating, higher than the 50 percent just a month earlier and up significantly from his summer doldrums.
To deal with this week's barrage, the White House shifted into a strategy familiar to those who watched Clinton survive a campaign-threatening character onslaught in early 1992.
As it did when Gennifer Flowers told her tale of an alleged tryst with Clinton to a tabloid magazine, the White House labeled as "cash for trash" allegations from Arkansas troopers that they helped arrange extramarital encounters.
And, again, Clinton's chief defender was Hillary Rodham Clinton, who lashed out at the allegations.
To Clinton's most loyal supporters, there is no mystery to what they concede seems an inevitable cycle. To hear them tell it, every time Clinton is on a roll, his critics unleash a new barrage.
"The Republicans told us all this year that Bill Clinton was going to destroy the economy and he has proven that a lie," said Democratic political consultant Ann Lewis. "So now they are recycling the personal stories."
But while fresh questions about Clinton's character are likely to remind voters of their doubts about him, Vanderbilt's Hargrove predicted they would ultimately matter little to his political fate.
"Once you get elected, I think people are forgiving or at least they prefer not to think about personal peccadilloes," Hargrove said. "We don't drive a president out of office because of alleged weakness of the flesh. We drive presidents out of office if they do bad things while in office."
by CNB